


A Crash-Course on John Watson

by lego_hearts



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock BBC
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lego_hearts/pseuds/lego_hearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's been with Jess for just over four months, which is a record for him in his new life in London. He's even daring to imagine a 'future', although that thought is always abruptly stoppered when he thinks of Sherlock and remembers the reason he's still with Jess is because she hasn't spent a single second alone with the detective and it's rather exhausting keeping things that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crash-Course on John Watson

John tries his very best to make a point of never letting any of the women he dates spend time alone with Sherlock. For everyone's sake. Sherlock usually ends up offending them, and John then has to spend the night alternating between apologising for and defending his flatmate, neither of which go down particularly well, and John is also certain now that Sherlock does take their negative reactions to heart because God knows he's trying to act like a normal human being sometimes, but he can't quite grasp it and it's frustrating for him. John wants to save on hurt feelings all round.

  
He's been with Jess for just over four months, which is a record for him in his new life in London. He's even daring to imagine a 'future', although that thought is always abruptly stoppered when he thinks of Sherlock and remembers the reason he's still with Jess is because she hasn't spent a single second alone with the detective and it's rather exhausting keeping things that way.

  
Sherlock knows, of course, but he doesn't say anything. He's actually stopped saying things about John's girlfriends. It isn't as though he ignores them, but the reviews that used to follow no longer do and John doesn't entirely know what to make of the other man's apparent acceptance of John's parade of girlfriends. (Even without Sherlock's input they never seem to last).

  
But four months is still a long time and Jess doesn't know why she isn't allowed to be alone with Sherlock. Sherlock has dismissed John's behaviour as a reasonable reaction to previous instances of his tactlessness and he really doesn't mind – the less evidence he has to back up his assumptions that they're all terrible and not compatible with John, the better. Jess has been around for a while, though. She's the mothering, romantic type who likes to fuss and make little quips about John's habits, and Sherlock hates that because John's habits are endearing and don't warrant being pointing out as negative. She's the kind of woman who'd set up a nice home and fill it with matching things and routines, and John hates matching things.

  
Actually, Sherlock doesn't know why John is still with her – though possibly it's more to do with the spate of crimes they've been working on recently, including a rather tricky manslaughter, so half of John's life is busy and full and he hasn't had the time to work out that Jess is just _draining_.

  
So Sherlock reasons.

  
John is out shopping when Jess arrives an inconsiderate _four hours_ early for their evening date. Sherlock is reading in the lounge when she breezes in dressed in a floral summer dress and flip-flops in an attempt to look chic-casual, which is really not John's style. Casual, yes, but chic certainly not. If one were being kind one would just stick with 'casual'. But there's not pretence, and pretence just oozes off of Jess.

  
“Hi, Sherlock,” she greets as though they're the best of friends and her boyfriend isn't actively trying to keep them apart. Sherlock raises his eyebrows and watches as she sits in John's armchair. There's no need for that to annoy him, but the way she folds herself into it makes it look insanely uncomfortable where John just melts into it's battered embrace. “What are you doing?”

  
Sherlock looks rather incredulously at her over the top of his book, because he had thought it was quite obvious that he was reading. But then he supposes that this is probably what other people term 'small talk' and he should be polite because it might bore her sooner.

  
“Reading,” he replies. “ _The Count of Monte Cristo_.” It's second edition. And in French. It belonged to his grandmother and Sherlock reads it when he feels his grasp on the eloquence of French grammar is slipping.

  
“Oh-isn't that a film? With Antonio...whatshisname?”

  
“You're thinking of _The Mask of Zorro_ ,” Sherlock sighs, already weary.

  
“Oh! I think he's so handsome,” Jess continues, as though Sherlock hadn't spoken. “John said the other day that if he had to sleep with another man it would be Antonio Banderas.”

  
Sherlock prepares for a long few hours spent wearing his surprised face.

  
“Well, that seems highly unlikely. He's not John's type,” he says, overlooking the part where John is straight and so doesn't have a 'type' of man. “He's a man, an ex-soldier, he'd want someone smaller than him, build wise, so that he can indulge his protective nature.”

  
Jess looks at him, rather tight-lipped it must be said, though she seems to shake it off well enough.

  
“Well, no, your'e right. He's so manly anyway, he'd hate someone trying to control him-”

  
“Actually, the odds are with ex-military that they want to be in a relationship with someone who can take control of a situation, to fill in the space left by their job, but also to let them feel vulnerable without feeling unsafe. Someone assertive. It's all psychological,” Sherlock says with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  
Jess sighs. “You seem to be quite informed.”

  
“I like psychology,” Sherlock shrugs.

  
A silence settles between them and Sherlock prematurely thinks that he's struck gold and can continue reading. But Jess is one of those persistent types. Probably because she feels as though Sherlock is slighting her.

  
“I'm thinking of organising a picnic for our anniversary-”

  
“That's  _very_ organised,” Sherlock mumbles from behind his book.

  
“Well, it's next week.”

  
“You'll have been together five months. You're seven months early.”

  
“Well, our five month anni-”

  
“'Anniversary' as a word is indicative of a time measured by years as it derives from the Latin adjective anniversarus, returning yearly. So 'anniversary' is strictly a yearly celebration and not monthly.”

  
For a second, Jess looks as though she wants to slap him. But she calms down rapidly, probably to retain her modesty.

  
“Well, I'm thinking of organising a picnic-”

  
“I wouldn't, John doesn't like eating out of doors.”

  
Jess gapes at him, though Sherlock can't understand why. He's being nothing but helpful, really. “John doesn't like eating outdoors?”

  
“No, it makes him feel exposed. Didn't you do any research into the military when you started dating him?” he asks incredulously, because he'd read several websites and a psychology book within a week of John moving in to Baker Street, to better understand John's state of mind.

  
Jess shakes her head. “I don't research my boyfriends.”

  
“Oh, maybe you should. It might help,” Sherlock smiles, but the smile isn't returned.

  
Jess is quiet and again Sherlock thinks victory is his, but no soon has the thought warmed him than Jess speaks again.

  
“So, you're in love with him-” she says, and Sherlock resumed his now well-practised look of surprise. “You're in love with him and you've learnt all of these things and it's really sweet, but I'm sorry he doesn't love you back. There's no need to be rude-”

  
“Rude?” Sherlock asks.

  
“Because-” again Jess continues as though he hadn't spoken. “John and I are serious. I'm going to be with him a long time and you'll just have to get used to it,” she says, talking to Sherlock as though he's a child and she's going to be marrying his father. His father would hate her. “We've even spoken about children. Sons for him-”

  
“Actually,” Sherlock interjects, oddly satisfied by the anger that flashes over her face. “He wants girls-”

  
Jess scoffs. “Where in the ex-military handbook does it say that?”

  
“It doesn't. But John has a bad relationship with his father and he worries that he'll be like him, so having daughters means that he is less likely to feel as though he's treating them the way his dad treated him.”

  
Sherlock is pretty sure Jess hates him.

  
“He told you that?”

  
“He didn't need to tell me that.”

  
“So you might be wrong,” she says.

  
“I'm not wrong,” Sherlock replies.

  
Jess looks at him. Sherlock feels a challenge brewing.

  
“His favourite food?”

  
“Beef Wellington.”

“He told me steak and ale pie- I made him steak and ale pie.”

  
“Only his mum's Beef Wellington. He doesn't like any other. It's his favourite and he knows if he tells anyone someone will make it and he'll have to pretend he likes it-”

  
“His favourite film?”

  
“He said _Independence Day_ , didn't he?”

  
Jess nods her head wearily, waiting for Sherlock to correct her on that.

  
Sherlock nods in turn. “Yes. Because it has all of his favourite things. Will Smith, comedy-drama, aliens, and highly fabricated battle scenes.”

  
Jess raises an eyebrow. “So it is _Independence Day_?”

  
“It's a good film,” Sherlock replies nonchalantly. “Although he does always watch _The Bridge Over The River Kwai_ once a year, the day before his birthday. On his own.”

  
“Why?”

  
Sherlock peers at her as though she's just asked something unimaginably stupid. Which, in Sherlock's mind, most things are.

  
“I don't know. Why don't you ask him?”

  
At that moment, as though on cue for his question, John opens the living room door and pauses, the comical kind of mid-stride pause that don't really happen in real life. Except they do, especially when you see your sociopathic housemate and your girlfriend having what you know isn't a polite conversation.

  
John steels himself. Sherlock is reading _The Count of Monte Cristo_. God knows why he needs to improve his French right now. Jess is wearing that floral dress-flip-flop combo he doesn't particularly care for, but the semi-horrified expression on her face is more distracting.

  
“Alright, everyone?”

  
Jess explodes, a mess of half-wailing and accusing glares in Sherlock's direction.

  
“You don't like picnics!” she shouts at John. “And you want a daughter. And- and- you don't like Antonio Banderas!”

  
John, stunned, responds to the last point as it filters in to his brain. “I like Antonio Banderas-”

  
“But you wouldn't _sleep_ with him,” Jess weeps. “I can't- this is ridiculous. I can't do this-” She storms past poor John and down the stairs, her flip-flops slapping awkwardly on the tiled floor of the hallway.

  
He turns to look at Sherlock who, to his credit, looks a little unsettled by Jess' exit.

  
“I was trying to help,” he says, and John actually believes him. Sherlock isn't a bad man, really. He pulls a deeply apologetic face and stares up at John like a child. An anxiously inquisitive child who is unable to side-step all of the cracks in the road and genuinely fears the consequences. “Not good-” Sherlock says, observation that warrants John's confirmation, though John knows Sherlock won't realise what he did wrong.

  
“A bit not good, Sherlock,” he replies, his line that says more than that confirmation, but additionally assures Sherlock that John isn't angry. That this is another lesson learnt and maybe they'll do better next time. “So, what's with the French?”


End file.
